Mayan Time Periods and Period Glyphs

The table below shows various periods, from one day up to the largest known,
and period glyphs for some of them. Some periods do not have glyphs, because we’ve never
seen them;
the largest known date on the monuments is

13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0

at Coba,
and the Mayans only carved the numbers, not the associated period glyphs.

The table goes up to the largest cycle shown at Coba, but since we don’t have a clue
what the names of any of these huge periods were, I’ve simply lettered them. The
largest one, then, is the “N” cycle. Just to give some idea how large a number
this is, the Earth weighs approximately 66 sextillion tons, which fits between the
“H” and the “I” cycles.
There are probably more days in the Coba date than
atoms in the universe. .

So then I did some calculations, using Python, a full-featured
programming language available for Unices, Linux, Mac and Windows OSs.
** is used for
exponentiation, and _ means to substitute the previous answer in the formula.

The “Hablatun” name has only been reported by Spinden, so it is very unlikely
to actually have been in use.
In fact, all terms for periods larger than k’atun should be viewed with
a skeptical eye. K’atun and smaller periods shown in the table are attested
to and used by Mayans, but bak’tun seems to be an invention of Mayanists rather than Mayans. Recent
advances in translation have shown that the glyph for the 144000-day period should most probably
be translated as pi or pih, a term meaning “bundle.” None of the terms
for periods greater than 144000 days are attested. They should be recognized for what they
are: terms invented for the convenience of Western anthropologists, archaeologists and epigraphers.
See any of the recent Notebooks by Linda Schele (et al.)
for a detailed discussion.

Schele, Linda and Nikolai Grube,
Notebook for the XXIst Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop,
“The Dresden Codex,”
Department of Art and Art History, The College of Fine Arts,
and The Institute of Latin American Studies,
University of Texas,
Austin, 1997.

Schele, Linda, Nikolai Grube and Simon Martin,
Notebook for the XXIInd Maya Hieroglyphic Forum,
“Deciphering Maya Politics,”
Department of Art and Art History, The College of Fine Arts,
and The Institute of Latin American Studies,
University of Texas,
Austin, 1998.